98 The Winning of the West 



on the number of immigrants who adopted this 

 method of travel increased ; larger boats were used, 

 and the immigrants took more property with them. 

 In the last half of the year 1787 there passed by 

 Fort Harmar 146 boats, with 3,196 souls, 1,371 

 horses, 165 wagons, 191 cattle, 245 sheep, and 24 

 hogs. 9 In the year ending in November, 1788, 

 967 boats, carrying 18,370 souls, with 7,986 horses, 

 2,372 cows, i, no sheep, and 646 wagons, 10 went 

 down the Ohio. For many years this great river 

 was the main artery through which the fresh blood 

 of the pioneers was pumped into the West. 



There are no means of procuring similar figures 

 for the number of immigrants who went over the 

 Wilderness Road ; but probably there were not half 

 as many as went down the Ohio. Perhaps from 

 ten to twenty thousand people a year came into 

 Kentucky during the period immediately succeeding 

 the close of the Revolution ; but the net gain to the 

 population was much less, because there was always 

 a smaller, but almost equally steady, counter-flow 

 of men who, having failed as pioneers, were strug 

 gling wearily back toward their deserted Eastern 

 homes. 



The inrush being so great Kentucky grew apace. 

 In 1785 the population was estimated at from 

 twenty 11 to thirty thousand; and the leading towns, 



' Harmar Papers, December 9, 1787. 



10 "Columbian Magazine," January 1789. Letter from Fort 

 Harmar, November 26, 1788. By what is evidently a clerical 

 error the time is put down as one month instead of one year. 



11 "Journey in the West in 1785," by Lewis Brantz. 



